New Delhi: The Delhi "braveheart" who died on Saturday came from a humble family originally from Uttar Pradesh and took tuitions to pay for her school and college fees.

Born into a family from Ballia, the young woman, family friends said, was hard working and desired to forge ahead in life. The sources close to the family said they moved to the national capital a quarter century ago. It settled in a middle-class neighbourhood in southwest Delhi where she was born 23 years ago.

The girl's father, seeing her brilliance in academics, took loans to finance her higher studies. After her education, she went to Dehradun to train as a physiotherapist. She returned to Delhi and started as an intern in a private hospital in north Delhi. As she was the eldest in the family, her family was convinced that her sucess in academics would inspire her two younger brothers too.

"Like any family they dreamt of their daughter getting a better job and a better salary," a source said. The dreams were shattered when she became victim to a gang rape on December 16, the beginning of a 13-day agonising struggle for life that ended in her death in Singapore on Saturday.